Disney Cracks Down on DVC Point Rental
When booking resort reservations at Walt Disney World, Disneyland & beyond, DVC is now requiring members certify that the reservation is being made for personal use only. This coupled with updated terms & conditions strongly suggests that Disney Vacation Club is finally cracking down on ownership interests being used for commercial purposes.
This is the latest step in a multi-decade saga that dates back to at least the mid-aughts aimed at reducing abuse and misuse of DVC ownership interests that are detrimental to the membership at large. Frustration among regular ole Disney Vacation Club members who rent out points for personal use seems to have bubbled over in recent years, with angry owners bringing it up at the Annual Condo Association Meeting and in various online forums.
The crux of the issue is that Disney Vacation Club has seen a proliferation of members who only have an ownership as a business venture–never using it for their families or friends. You know that old adage about not viewing DVC as an investment? Well, they do in a very literal sense.
Not only do these commercial renters own thousands of points (perhaps tens of thousands?), but they are incredibly efficient at exploiting loopholes and “maximizing” their ownership interests in ways that enhance its commercial value. Things like walking reservations, min-maxing speculative bookings for higher ROI, and more. (Not going to delve into this because I don’t really want this to be a blueprint for bad behavior.)
Even if these behaviors aren’t technically against the rules, they are against the spirit of the membership. And commercial activity most certainly violates the letter of the DVC ownership documents, too. The Public Offering Statement has reflected this for years, indicating that Disney Vacation Club ownership is for personal use only, and that owners should not engage in any commercial activity related to their interest.
With that said, there’s also ambiguity in what constitutes commercial activity. These documents also state that “Members may rent their Vacation Points. However, the use of your Vacation Points for commercial purposes is expressly prohibited.” There’s nothing that specifically defines commercial use; it’s always been open to interpretation at Disney’s discretion.
The most meaningful policy adjustment DVC has made in years aimed at targeting rentals (they’ve made plenty aimed at restricting resales) came earlier this year. Disney Vacation Club has updated the Terms and Conditions associated with making online reservations using DVC points. Here are the pertinent parts of the changes:
“You agree that any reservations made under your membership are solely for personal use and not for commercial purposes, as required by governing documents for each DVC Resort, including but not limited to the Declaration of Condominium and Membership Agreement. DVCM reserves the right to interpret personal use and determine if reservations are booked for personal or commercial purposes in its sole discretion.”
“Personal use may include enjoying the benefits of a DVC Membership with family or allowing use of any reserved Vacation Home to friends and family on occasion. Additionally, personal use means that the member does not regularly or frequently rent/sell reservations booked using their membership.”
“In addition, Disney reserves the right to cancel or modify a reservation (including after the reservation has been confirmed) if the reservation includes or resulted from a mistake or error of any kind, if Disney confirms that a reservation was made for commercial purpose and not for personal use, or where it appears that a guest has engaged in fraudulent or misleading activity in making the reservation. If a reservation is cancelled by Disney, Disney shall have no responsibility beyond the refund of monies paid to Disney and/or Vacation Points used, for the reservation.”
Along with this, there’s now a checkbox on the DVC Member website during the final stage of the booking flow that requires owners to click a checkbox certifying the following: “I agree to the Disney Vacation Club Terms and Conditions, and I attest that this reservation is for personal use only.”
This is the only new acknowledge of the change that we’ve spotted on DVCMember.com. However, we’ve heard from other members that there’s virtually the same attestation required when booking reservations over the phone.
DVC Member Services also seems to be asking follow-up questions to confirm the relationship of the guest to the member (the member themselves, family, friends, or a rentee). This added specificity is not part of the online booking flow, signaling that more changes might be on the horizon.
Late 2025 Update
The latest update comes courtesy of the 2025 DVC Condo Association Meetings (h/t Disboards & DVCFan), where the topic of commercial renting came up at the BWV meeting. Questions were asked about rental patterns, room inventory, enforcement, etc.
Shannon Sakaske, VP of Member Experiences & Club Management, reportedly reiterated the party line. Disney Vacation Club has increased staffing and resources to monitor bookings, while offering no specifics of who the policy had been targeted towards or the degree to which there had been enforcement of the rules.
In other conversations, including those we’ve had with Disney Vacation Club representatives since summer, it’s clear that there has been some degree of enforcement. It has further been suggested by DVC that this has resulted in action on the part of commercial renters who were being targeted.
Reading between the lines, my assumption here is that high volume owners were blocked from renting and divested their interests–since that’s why they owned the points in the first place. It’s entirely possible this whole policy was narrowly aimed at only a few large-scale institutional market movers, and every individual owner discussing it online was not the intended audience and will not be impacted.
I don’t know that for certain, but that’s the impression I’ve gotten. That DVC had a few offenders in mind for the policy update, but couldn’t take targeted action without an official policy update rolling out to everyone.
Anecdotally, we haven’t noticed much of an increase when we’ve searched for room availability in the last few months. Not that we’d expect a sudden, night and day difference. Whatever the impact, it’s likely at the margins. Given the behavior of commercial renters, I could see it being easier to book certain types of rooms, and a few days later than normal. Those aren’t the types of bookings we’ve tried to make, and our timeline for booking is always tighter. With that said, I’be curious to know whether others have felt a difference–has DVC availability gotten better/easier to book?
Sakaske’s update on the commercial rental crackdown isn’t exactly ‘stop-the-presses’ news. If you’ve attended Moonlight Magic or otherwise had a chance to chat with DVC reps (not guides, but actual management) on the topic, you’ve probably heard very similar sentiment.
More interesting was Sakaske sharing that the biggest commercial renter is actually…Disney! As many members are already aware, a portion of DVC room inventory comes is captured from members exchange them through the Disney Collection for regular hotel stays, Interval International for non-Disney bookings, or the wide variety of exchanges, all of which are a poor use of DVC points.
Disney then rents these rooms out at cash rates, and at inflated prices above their points basis. If you’ve wondered how there’s cash availability despite no point availability, there’s your answer–the inventory gets moved from one bucket to another. This is in addition to undeclared inventory, which is also a thing–especially at resorts like the Island Tower that are still in active sales.
In any case, Sakaske revealed that 20% of all bookings come via Disney utilizing points that it has recaptured and entered into the system as cash bookings. Honestly, I’m not quite sure what I expected this number to be, but definitely lower than 20%. Probably somewhere between the single digits and around 10%, probably?
Twenty percent is a high number, and that alone has a meaningful impact on overall occupancy and availability. It also makes me wonder if part of Disney’s motivation for taking commercial renters off the board was its own self-interest. I’m not sure the mechanics of those points’ utilization once they’re recaptured, but it wouldn’t be the least bit surprising to me if Disney tips the scales in its favor while still technically adhering to the letter of its membership documents. After all, the House of Mouse always wins!
That’s all we have in updates courtesy of the 2025 Disney Vacation Club Condo Association Meetings. Since this is an ongoing issue of concern for DVC members, we figured it was worth passing this along. What follows is our original explanation of the rule change and commentary…
One thing to note is that the recent rule changes do not prohibit the renting of Disney Vacation Club points. We’re thankful this isn’t the case, as one of the strengths of DVC membership is its flexibility. And while we’ve never rented out any points, I could foresee a day when we might need to do so. By contrast, we’ve rented points on several occasions to supplement our own annual allotment (when borrowing has proven insufficient).
What this prohibits is commercial renting of points, which is pattern of behavior. Those who are regularly and repeatedly renting out points for financial gain, and seldom using the ownership interest for their own families are those being targeted. While there’s no bright-line rule (presumably because many of these are sophisticated businesses that would tailor their behavior to fall on the “right” side of that), it should be fairly easy to surmise based on intent and frequency.
If you’re mostly using your DVC points and are only renting them out on rare occasion, you’re likely fine. It’s a smell test type of deal–you should know right now whether or not you’re a commercial renter. (If you somehow don’t know, you probably aren’t.)
Our Commentary
Despite signs that it would, we’re still surprised to see this happen. That’s because this has been a known issue for years. Well over a decade. Maybe since the advent of AOL and online message boards? Over 7 years ago, we first published: Why is Disney Vacation Club Availability So Limited?
That was aimed at addressing a range of questions concerning availability (or lack thereof) at or beyond the 7-month mark, commercial activity, Walt Disney World selling cash rate rooms at Deluxe Villas despite no rooms showing on the DVC engine and countless other complaints. We had heard from a lot of readers about how DVC had become a “scam” due to the lack of availability, and sought to explain the issues–plural–that led to that point. Judging by the 125+ reader comments, it was a hot topic–and continues to be one.
One of those problems was less breakage, and one of the reasons for less breakage was owners renting out their unused Disney Vacation Club points. Other issues included an imbalance in resort/room categories and a pool of points that was less desirable and had lower utilization. Thankfully, this problem has become less pronounced in the years since thanks to dilution (although I do wonder whether the Cabins at Fort Wilderness might reverse that). At the same time, you could easily argue that point rental has worsened.
Given all of that, Disney Vacation Club seemingly had ample incentive to crack down on commercial rental of DVC points. That main reason I believed it wouldn’t happen is, quite simply, because it hadn’t already. This has been a known issue for as long as I can remember–and I could’ve sworn that it was a consideration when we were first debating buying into DVC.
It turns out that was accurate. Back on December 31, 2007, Disney Vacation Club amended the Public Offering Statement to clarify what constitutes commercial renting of points (h/t DVC News). That new commercial use policy made clear that DVC memberships are intended for personal vacation use. It reiterated that using the ownership interest for “commercial purposes,” then defined as a pattern of rental activity or other occupancy that could conclude constitutes a commercial enterprise or activity, is strictly prohibited.
The Public Offering Statement then went on to offer a new guideline that any DVC Member who makes more than 20 reservations in any 12-month period, shall be required to prove that all of those reservations are for the use of accommodations by the DVC Member, the DVC Member’s family and/or the DVC Member’s friends, and not for commercial purposes.
If such a DVC Member is unable to conclusively establish that, all reservations in excess of the first 20 reservations shall be presumed to be the use of Vacation Accommodations for commercial purposes in violation of the Declaration and the Membership Agreement. This was at a time when reservations were made by phone, and DVC Member Services simply would not confirm a reservation absent such a showing. This was then known as the “Multiple Reservation Rule.”
Digging back through contemporaneous forum posts, the reaction to that news back in January 2008 was eerily similar to the reaction to June 2025’s crackdown on commercial renting. It was supposedly a big problem then, and many members were annoyed by how pervasive commercial renting had become. It was a problem that needed to be stopped before it got even more out of hand. (If only those posters could see nearly two decades into the future!)
The only issue? In combing through more posts, I could find exactly zero instances of owners having DVC Member Services refuse to confirm a reservation or cancel a booking. Of course, part of this could be a matter of self-selection, as owners engaging in a pattern of commercial renting probably aren’t going to go into a hostile audience and air their grievances–that might fall on deaf ears.
But I would’ve expected to read or hear at least some reports of this happening over the last couple of decades. After all, there’s a lot of chatter about just how the commercial renters manage their memberships in order to run them like bona fide business investments. Given that, I think it’s fairly safe to say enforcement of that 2007 rule change was minimal, at most.
That’s more or less my reason for skepticism that Disney Vacation Club would or will actually do anything about commercial renting. It stands to reason that they already would have enforced existing policies if there was an appetite to do so. The fact that they haven’t suggests to me that there are legal concerns about enforceability or about the unintended consequences of such a crackdown.
With regard to the former point, I won’t pretend to be an expert in timeshare law, but it strikes me as possible that none of this is legally enforceable. That the original contract language is insufficient for DVC to prevail if this were challenged in court, and all the subsequent guidelines and policy changes are simply a scare tactic. It’s not at all uncommon for lawyers to send toothless cease & desists or demand letters with zero intentions of ever acting upon them.
In this scenario, DVC would be bluffing in the hopes that at least some percentage of commercial renters will be given pause about the change and voluntarily exit the market, and that will have a sufficiently positive impact on availability that members take notice. Conversely, what DVC might be doing is playing 4D chess here, trying to reduce confidence in the DVC rental market among prospective rentees.
This news has already garnered a lot of traction and many Walt Disney World fans are risk averse. I could see a not insignificant number opting against renting DVC points due to the risk and uncertainty introduced by this new policy. If Disney were really smart, they would strategically cancel a handful of reservations and leak word of doing so.
Even if that resulted in litigation from commercial renters, it would arguably be worth it from Disney’s perspective in reducing confidence in the DVC rental market. That’s the cost of doing business, and there’s a decent chance those commercial renters couldn’t afford to take on Disney in court, even if they had a compelling case.
Or maybe this policy is simply being introduced to assuage annoyed members that DVC is making a good faith effort at eliminating commercial renting. So the next time someone inevitably asks this question at the December Condo Association Meeting, DVC leadership can point to this policy and hang up the ole ‘mission accomplished’ banner.
The other possibility is that Disney Vacation Club is concerned about the second order consequences of cracking down on commercial activity. I have no clue how many points are in the hands of for-profit businesses, but I’ll bet DVC has a pretty good idea! And if that number is as high as some rumors suggest, they might have very valid concerns about what happens if those points are suddenly liquidated via the resale market.
After all, resale prices don’t exist in a vacuum. We just discussed the 2025 math of purchasing Disney Vacation Club direct versus the resale market, and it’s a pretty close call once you get past the surface level price disparity. Well, that may cease to be the case if resale prices plummet due to a sudden influx of points. That drop could become even more of a self-fulfilling prophecy if non-commercial 2042 owners see values take a hit, and decide to cash out while the gettin’s good on top of the commercial exodus.
To be very clear, I have no idea whether this would happen in such a crackdown scenario. And I’ll be the first to admit that I have a history of expecting X or Y world event to have an adverse impact on resale prices. Since 2017, we’ve been waiting to time the market and purchase more points. (Huge mistake–but I guess buying during the Great Recession spoiled us.)
I obviously don’t want the type of real world event that would normally trigger plunging prices…but I’ll concede that I’m salivating at the prospect of this new rule causing a ‘correction’ in DVC resale prices. Perhaps this point is purely wishful thinking on my part.
Nevertheless, the point does stand that Disney Vacation Club’s primary goal is to sell more points. Obviously, pesky little things like “member satisfaction” must also be taken into account, but if DVC were concerned the consequences an actual crackdown would have on demand and prices, that would explain a lot.
That might be why they only paid face to prohibiting commercial activity back in 2007, and it could be precisely what’s happening again here. Make regular members feel better that DVC is trying with this new policy, while not actually doing anything on the enforcement side.
Hopefully I’m wrong. Maybe there’s a new legal team that is confident these terms & conditions can withstand scrutiny; perhaps management is more motivated to actually enforce this new policy. Another possibility is that things have gotten so bad that the risk to member satisfaction outweighs the second-order effects of the crackdown.
That DVC essentially had no choice but to act here, as ignoring commercial renting will have even worse unintended consequences in terms of families selling their personal-use points or declining to add on at the Island Tower, Lakeshore Lodge, etc.
Finally, if you’re a prospective rentee and are worried about how this could impact you, the jury is obviously still out on that. The best option is taking a wait and see approach, watching this unfold for a few months.
If I were in the market to rent right now, I would simply stick with the established DVC rental businesses, like David’s Vacation Club Rentals or the others discussed in our Money Saving Guide to Renting DVC Points. That is the safest course of action if you’re wanting to rent in the near-term.
This might seem like an odd recommendation given all of the ink we just spilled about Disney cracking down on commercial renters, but the difference is that those businesses are conduits connecting owners with clients. They are obviously companies, but they are not, themselves, commercial renters. They’re marketplaces.
It’s always possible that some owners who use the third party intermediaries are themselves commercial renters, but we’re skeptical. For one thing, their margins wouldn’t be as high if they’re using David’s or DVC Rental Store or whatever because those companies are taking a slice for themselves. So I would imagine most commercial renters are using social media, forums, and other venues that don’t take a cut.
If you book directly with a commercial renter, you’ll have no recourse if your reservation is cancelled–except hoping they’ll refund your money. If an owner’s reservation is cancelled via David’s (etc), you have the intermediary to issue a refund. Until we see how this unfolds, that’s the safest bet right now. And it may continue to be the case that renting directly via social media and forums is fine, because (as discussed above), this could just be a toothless scare tactic. Time will tell.
If you’re thinking about joining DVC, be sure to read our Ultimate Guide to Disney Vacation Club. This covers the pros & cons, resale v. direct, how much money you’ll save, and other important things to know before taking the plunge. If you still can’t decide whether membership is right for you, “try before you buy” with the recommendations in How to Save BIG on Deluxe Disney Accommodations Renting DVC Points.
YOUR THOUGHTS
What do you think about DVC’s crackdown on commercial renting? Have you had more difficulty in finding DVC availability in the last several years? Have you noticed certain resorts, room categories, or times of the year getting more competitive? Any firsthand experiences you care to share? Any other thoughts or tips to share? Any questions we can help you answer? Hearing feedback about your experiences is both interesting to us and helpful to other readers, so please share your thoughts below in the comments!
Just wading through all of that gobbledygook just reinforces my bafflement that anyone would take on the financial burden of a long-term time share commitment. Priceline Express for life, dawg! 🙂
Tom,
Hello I’m a long time lurker and looking for some comfort, advice or really anything you can offer.
I planned to rent 2-3 studios for the first week in December 2026. Yes, I know this one of the hardest weeks to book for DVC especially at my home resort and neighboring resort. The rooms are for a large family trip (21-27 people) which I’m already using my own DVC points in addition to obtaining transfer points from another member to book 3-4 other rooms depending on availability.
Needless to say I am very concerned about renting given the current discussions and the possibility the reservations could be cancelled even if booked via a marketplace. While we potentially could get our money back depending on the cancellation timeline we may not be able to get rooms
at the same resort even if we paid cash (which would suck). Unfortunately I cannot split the group up to different resorts as much as I’d like to unless they are neighboring resorts (close walking distance).
I’m trying to hold out hope additional transfer points will come available for my home or neighboring resort before the date the reservations can be booked but it’s not looking good so far. Thus, my choices are limited to 1) renting, 2) flying to do a one night stay before the end of the year to get a bouncebank offer or 3) stay non-DVC (definitely not preferable).
Again I know you can’t tell me what to do but given all the above any advice or opinion would be greatly appreciated.
I guess it probably depends on your risk tolerance?
I’d definitely be concerned if it were me, but not to the point that I wouldn’t rent.
What I would instead do if I were really worried is book backup resorts as a safety net with the intention of cancelling if the DVC reservations are cancelled. Something like All Star Sports or Coronado Springs.
My general observation/sense is that the dust has already settled on this crackdown, and whatever we’re seeing now is the new-normal. I don’t think there’s another shoe about to drop. Something already happened, and the status quo is the “aftermath” of that, even if things don’t seem all that different. So I might’ve been worried about this were I booking over the summer, but much less so right now and going forward.
Hope that helps!
Well, using David’s Vacation Rentals will not exempt you from this crackdown – Disney cancelled my reservation that I made through David’s and while David’s offered me two options to go somewhere else, they basically were using Disney sites to book and the whole purpose of me using David’s was to be able to go to Fort Wilderness during Halloween season. That is impossible to book at this late date. I chose to get a refund and am actually going to go stay at Universal because Disney is pissing me off with this. David’s claims they can still rent but when reading the policy – I do not see how.
I love it! Keep it up Disney! Put point renting out of business!
How far in advance did David’s cancel your reservation? We’re booked through them and so nervous now!
It’s frustrating when there is no availability inside of 7 months and you have to waitlist or piece together a split stay all while Disney’s own website has plenty of Deluxe Villa availability (hmm…the largest DVC commercial renter happens to be Disney). What they could and should do is limit or prohibit reservation walking. A simple fix is disallowing a modification within one week of the reservation date AND subsequent modifications with the exception of adding more people to the reservation.
Villas listed on the website for cash are not part of what has been declared for DVC. They are two completely separate inventories but this is obviously not clearly explained by DVC since this is a common mistake to make.
Really? Wanna buy a bridge?
Florida has the most strictly regulated timeshares in the country. If you want to think Disney is regularly flaunting those laws and never getting caught, especially when there is a hostile government in place like last year, you have fun with your conspiracy theories…
And you can just go on thinking that all laws are enforced equally and equitably.
Of course DVC does nothing without also thinking about themselves and Disney, but This whole episode is similar to the DAS overhaul saga, starting with the same claims about rental/DAS overuse: doesn’t negatively affect anything, nothing can be done legally, can’t prove anything, change will only make things worse, etc. Ending with many assuming Disney’s sole motivation in the DAS overhaul was to sell more LL. While likely true – there’s also more to that story. I agree with the articles here on DTB.
Yes there’s always going to be longer waits for popular rides and December studios are always going to be rough (unless the point season changes). That’s beside the point of negative impacts from people using things in ways it was not intended – to the detriment of others. In 2007 DVC defined what it was to be commercial use with that 20 reservation policy. In 2025 that policy now defines from a different angle, what it means to be personal use.
Today if you poke DVC for the updated policy it explains the amount of money made from rentals annually cannot exceed our total dues cost annually. That is the threshold they consider crosses the bounds of buying DVC for your own vacations and personal use. Today DVC is saying it is OK to rent for offsetting all our dues. Beyond that questions why were the points bought in the first place. Sounds reasonable to me.
I have a sneaking suspicion this is not really about cracking down on commercial rentals but rather about bullying people who won’t use their points at Disney World for a period of time (eg due to kids being in college) to waste those points for disney cruises or Interval or ABD rather than getting cash from rental to pay toward those trips. A commercial renter won’t stop based on a warning in a checkbox. But a retiree might balk and worry about their account being closed and be deterred from a rental.
That’s a good theory.
One way or another, I think this is driven by ulterior motives.
Disney knows who the commercial renters are, and they could go after them quietly if they so desired. My guess is that there probably aren’t even that many commercial renters (probably around a dozen or so?). All of the fanfare about this is for optics or as a scare tactic for someone else.
Disney management has “Ulterior Motives”? Next thing you’ll be saying is that Disney is a for-profit corporation driven by stock prices!
Tom, as current DVC owners intending to purchase more points on the resale market, would you recommend holding off for a time to see if the prices will go down significantly? (We bought directly from Disney when the minimum points buy-in for the perks was 50! and then again on the resale market, but are wanting more.)
if Disney sells X number of points, it would lead to Y number of bookings. Regardless of what entity makes the reservation. Also, owners walk reservations for themselves too! I don’t understand how renting out points changes this. I can only imagine Disney must have been hoping all the points they sell would not actually be used.
I was hoping to rent points (through David’s/DVC Rentals) for May 2026. Now I’m scared to do so! My daughter and I were hoping to try out DVC before taking the plunge on ownership. May have to rethink the plans now.
These aren’t the rentals that are being crack down upon. You can feel safe still renting points from David’s and DVC rentals, as they are middle men and have policies in place to protect you. Disney is more concerned about the single members who own tens of thousands of points and don’t take a single personal vacation. They own the points simply for profit and commercial purposes. Members will still be allowed to rent their own points to others (family and beyond) when they need to use them or loose them. very different scenarios. Rent your points and have an amazing vacation! Hope you join the family soon.
I purchased BoardWalk contract in 2000. For 20 years, I had no problem getting standard view studio at 11 month mark for a week in May and two shorter trips in summer and early December. The last 4 years or so, it’s impossible to get a standard studio EVER. So now I have to book garden/pool and take only 2 trips instead of 3. Disney could solve this by redistributing the points. One way would be to have only two views – Resort or Boardwalk view. Resort would be current resort category combined with garden/pool category. This combined category could use more points than current resort view but less than current points needed for garden/pool. Another option is to keep the 3 categories but have point difference between them be much less.
Let me see if I have this right:
It is okay to rent one’s DVC points.
It is okay to go through a marketplace to sell points (hook you up?) to someone like Dave’s/DVC Rental as long as you are not doing this with the majority of your points the majority of the time.
It is not okay to be a business, purchase DVC points (likely through the resale market) and then simply rent out those points as your business.
I’m thinking that for such a business model to work, these commercial renters would be owners of thousands of points across multiple properties, and as I’ve suggested, the vast bulk of their holdings would have been obtained on the resale market.
If that is correct, it would be fairly easy for Disney to determine points being rented out by Mama and Papa, and points being rented out by a corporate commercial business.
One thing that is a bit confusing as someone who’s never gone the DVC route: What problem is the problem regular owners have with commercial renters? other than it possibly downgrading their own return from renting out their own points, I can’t think of any.
The reason owners want commercial renting to stop is to limit how much the most desired rooms are snapped up by systematic walking and so forth. It’s believed that if ordinary owners were only competing with ordinary owners, the booking windows would show more availability again.
All of that is correct.
The problem regular owners have with commercial renters is that they do unscrupulous things that violate the ‘spirit’ of the membership to obtain prime reservations. I would also take that a step further and say that commercial renters optimize their memberships in a way that casual ones do not–meaning less breakage, meaning less ease of availability.
back in 1990 thru 1991 I was hired by a brand new Disney Company called DVC. I first started as an IT software developer contractor. By 1993 Disney made us permanent cast mbrs. The word Timeshare was taboo. Disney borrowed the vacation ownership ideas from Hilton. We created Old Key West resort to become DVC first resort. It was a challenge but we were proud and successful as our first DVC resort. I was part of the original DVC opening team. I’ve opened many new DVC resorts thru the years. When I returned to DVC member service I had to remember years ago how we coded the logic into DVC points system. How to bank and borrow points? Then how much to charge the DVC mbrs per points pricing? I remember calls from 3rd party commercial sellers that were very rude to us DVC mbr serv team. They wanted DVC to split the points into several different DVC reservations. It basically strangled the system. Thus never having an exact points available? The thought of making any changes to 3rd party commercial sellers reservations were waste of time constantly on the phone having to wait for them to scroll thru papers they used to verify what reservations are for whom? I referred to controlled chaos calls. Disney only wants to keep the value of DVC high with unique perks for true DVC buyers. Disney will offer to buy back your points if you hit hardship. Why resell it to Dave’s at a much lower price per points when Disney frowns on lowering the value? It’s a deeded contract. it’s what you pass onto your grandchildren. Back in 1991 the NCR contract had an expiration date of 2025!!! Time to rebuild, resell, and redesign DVC legal services.
Hoping they find a way with teeth that shuts the most obvious commercial enterprises. We complain about every time we have an opportunity. it’s not fair to ignore it. this is a terrific article!
Disney needs to get rid of all of the DVC and its people. They are the reason for the downfall of everything. The people who rent out to anyone are the ones destroying everything and that’s a fact just look at Fort wilderness and how fast that’s going downhill since they opened those ugly cabins
I see you have stumbled on to our diabolical plan to take over and destroy everything. Well played.
Well played, you’ve uncovered our diabolical plan to take over and destroy everything.
Hey Dan? Can we start with “It’s a Small World”?
Yes, people who return to Disney multiple times a year or annually, or every other year, and enjoy the resorts and spend money at the parks are the reason everything is going wrong. You nailed it.
I hope this is true BUT;
1. There are too many loopholes. For example, sllowing members to “Rent” points is still in the verbiage. I’ll bet commercial ways around it are already in the works.
2. I’ll believe it when I see it actually enforced and when an “example” is publicly announced!
While we’ve exchanged points with family members, among whom we have a pool in the thousands, we’ve never sold or rented points and will not do so. We’re not that broke that we can’t afford dues. We use our points, bank ’em, or sometimes lose ’em but we won’t inconvenience fellow DVC members for our own gain. IMO, others should be willing to do the same!
If you used your points you would be using the same amount of points if you rented them so I don’t understand the problem?
We’re currently here renting points as we always enjoy doing, but to my surprise this time the owner of the points was NOT a person but an LLC when they released the reservation to me! We rented from a reputable web site we always use and I know you have heard of also so I was kind of surprised! I’m sure this is more what they are cracking down on!
We are contemplating moving our points from our trust into our LLC for asset protection. LLCs aren’t always companies looking to rent out points, FWIW.
@Eric,
I too was about to move my point contracts into an LLC. However, I am wondering if LLC ownership might become one of the primary factors DVC uses to decide someone is an evil corporate renter.
In most years, I am unable to use all of our points (probably like a lot of families, we erred on the side of having a few too many than too few), and we can’t keep banking more and more every year, so somtimes I rent the excess points to friends, family, or co-workers.
Am thinking I WON’T now put my points into an LLC (even though I really want to for the reasons you mentioned) because I am concerned it will put a dreaded “commercial renter” target on me, even though I am nothing close to being that.
Welcome your thoughts?
LLC alone will be insufficient criteria. Likely will need to also have a significant number of points, all of which are rented rather than used by the member over a sustained period of time.
@Mike
I’m going to pipe in even though you asked Eric. Hope this helps:
There’s been alot of discussion this past month regarding the update. More info has trickled out of DVCM and DVC members have been bouncing legalities/practicalities off each other. The conclusion I have drawn is that any member clearly using the majority of their points has nothing to worry about (no matter how your membership is set up). It’s seriously doubtful the system will flag anyone regularly using at least 50% pts in reservations that include they/their family’s names.
It’s as simple as that. And if I had to guess, DVC won’t start anywhere close to that. It’s easy enough to go after and require explanation from those only using 10% or 20% of their points each year. Those are much harder to defend as ‘personal use’ especially after developing a pattern year after year.
Technology has come a long way since 2007. DVC can see things like who we frequently travel with to WDW. The tools to tackle this today are quite different than what they had in the past. DVC is now doing things like recording account activity – so they see when LLC’s are using bots to scrape availability and automate reservations. They see when people are wheeling and dealing in not much else than renting out confirmed reservations, because those require name changes each and every time. I don’t think they’d go through with with all this if: A) they didn’t think it was necessary, and B) they weren’t confident in how to execute it without harming the intended membership.
Great analysis as usual! We have been owners since 1996 and have seen the problem worsen over the decades. I am happy to see some movement on the issue, but as you stated, we have yet to see action. Right now it is all speculation and words. Disney seems very good at threading the needle. They need to do something about availability without total draconian measures. Baby Steps is better than no steps. I do agree that news needs to be “leaked” about canceled reservations.
Since they’re doing this, they should crack down on all the people who vlog while in their parks and are monetizing them. They are making money commercially off their property for no payment in return.
Disney loves these vloggers. Free advertising for Disney! That’s why they give popular vloggers special treatment (media invites, etc).
Until today, I never could have imagined that dvc points were so valuable that it was possible to rent them out for more than you paid! I never thought that Disney timeshares were a scam, exactly, but that it was axiomatic that you could never get as much value as you spent.
The fact that someone is able to sell them with positive revenue suggests that I need to rethink.
Thank you for hosting the banner on this issue. I have been an owner since 2013. In the last two years I have been forced to pay for moderates when needed defined dates for family. I hope DVC will be able to follow through with the new rule. It make a major difference in my Family’s Disney Vacation.